It’s still (relatively) easy to do business in America

The United States is the fourth-easiest place in the world to do business, according to a new World Bank report measuring business regulation. Trailing only Singapore, Hong Kong, and New Zealand, the U.S. has performed well in terms of basic measures of business entry, expansion, operations, and insolvency.

The one area where the US comes up short? The ease of paying taxes--based on the number of payments, the time spent, and the total tax rate, we rank 72nd in the world. According to the report, the average business spends an average of 187 hours per year filing taxes, with a total tax rate of 46.7 percent--considerably above the 35 percent average that’s typically cited. So, yes, the World Bank report takes some of the steam out of conservative complaints about overly burdensome business regulations in the US. But complaints about the corporate tax code still resonate.